July 2017

Have you ever seen a rhino walking into the African sunset? It’s an unbelievable sight. Now let me ask you this- have you ever seen a carcass of a dead adult rhino with its horn sawn off and the body lying on the dusty ground? It is an unforgettable and tragic sight.

The world’s wildlife is under a grave threat of either being slaughtered or captured alive. The wildlife commodities -- whether an ivory tusk, a rhino horn, live birds or reptiles -- are illegally moved through well-organized transnational supply chains and sold in international markets where consumers are willing to pay a high price.

From basic financial services to board rooms, strengthening women’s role in finance is one of the keys to boosting economic growth.

In every country, women and men alike need access to finance so that they can invest in their families and businesses. But today, 42% of women worldwide – about 1.1 billion – remain outside of the formal financial system, without a bank account or other basic tools to manage their money.

Last week on World Population Day, I was thinking of the joy of children and the right of women to decide when to have them. It matters to women, but it matters to society as a whole. There can be no sustainable development without women’s empowerment, and there can be no women’s empowerment without access to comprehensive maternal and reproductive health services. Family planning is part of them.

In his “The People of the Abyss,” novelist Jack London describes in grim detail a devastating storm that rocked London in the early 20th century. Residents suffered terribly—some losing as much as £10,000, a ruinous sum in 1902—but none lost more than the city’s poorest.

Natural disasters are devastating to all affected; however, not everyone experiences them the same way. A dollar in losses does not mean to a rich person what it does a poor person, who may live at subsistence level or lack the means to rebound and rebuild after disaster strikes. Be it a drought or flood, the poor are always hit harder than their wealthier counterparts.

In a guest post for Infrastructure Investor, World Bank Group CFO Joaquim Levy says multilaterals’ provision of hard-currency liquidity facilities could do much to catalyze private investment into emerging market infrastructure.

The World Bank Group is playing a leading role in thinking through better approaches to infrastructure financing in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). Part of this work entails understanding the key barriers that might impede private capital from participating more actively in EMDE projects. This is why we focus so much on developing local capital markets and other means to unlock the power of local institutional investors. It is also why we’ve been working to facilitate cross-border investment, in a time when returns in advanced economies remain low.

Musana Carts, a business that provides clean, solar-powered street vending carts, aims to improve the lives of street vendors in developing countries.

Africa’s urban areas are booming, experiencing a high urban growth rate over the last two decades at 3.5% per year. This growth rate is expected to hold into 2050. With this growth, street food is going to become one of the most important components of African diets. The formal sector will just not be able to keep up!

Enter my company, Musana Carts, which tackles the #FoodRevolution challenge from the end of the food value chain. Musana Carts, which currently operates in Uganda, streamlines and improves the production and consumption of street food.

Why did we decide to focus on street food?

Despite the illegal status of unlicensed street food vendors, who are regularly evicted from markets, street vending is an age old industry. Low income families spend up to 40% of their income in street food (Nri).

People eat street food because it is affordable, abundant, delicious and has a local and emotional flavor. Street food plays a key role in the development of cities. It is the one place where the posh and the poor from all walks of life meet and forget their social differences for the few seconds it takes to savor a snack.

Street foods tell a story. They capture the flavor of a nation and the pride of a tribe: in Uganda, the rolex, a rolled chapatti with an omelet, has been named one of the fastest growing African street foods. The minister for tourism made it the new Ugandan tourism product.

Last December, James Dooley Sullivan packed his wheelchair and travelled to Jamaica. Sullivan, an animator and visual arts video editor at the World Bank Group, wanted to see first-hand what it’s like to be disabled in a developing country. He shares his experience and his own history in a video and a series of blog posts.

I shudder every time I think about the external force created when I hit the tree and how that force coursed through my snowboard and up my left leg, which shattered, and on up into my spine, which broke in two. It lasted only a second, but I will never stop thinking about that pressure. Now, I have a new pressure to think about: Pressure Sore.

There is a lot to like about living in Washington, D.C. I am lucky enough to live in a city with reliable public transport, well-kept parks and friendly neighbors. And perhaps my biggest blessing is that my city enjoys good air quality. Typing “Washington D.C.” into BreatheLife’s website reveals that air pollution in my city is 10 percent below the World Health Organization’s guidelines.

Last December, James Dooley Sullivan packed his wheelchair and travelled to Jamaica. Sullivan, an animator and visual arts video editor at the World Bank Group, wanted to see first-hand what it’s like to be disabled in a developing country. He shares his experience and his own history in a video and a series of blog posts.

Luckily, when we land in Kingston we are greeted by the only leased van in all of Jamaica with a wheelchair lift. It fits me, my chair, my colleague Peter and all of the camera gear we’ll need to document my adventures learning about disability access in the developing world. What the van doesn’t have is working shock absorbers. I have to brace myself on a seat cushion as our driver Dereck tries to evade pot holes on the way to our hotel.

Whenever I check into a room I have to make some quick assessments. Here in Kingston, the carpet is thick and hard to push through, while the bed is spacious and at a suitable height. My new 17-inch wide chair just barely squeezes into the bathroom but the sink has a granite slab that whacks my knees. In the win column – there’s a handheld showerhead I can reach. In the no-win column – the toilet is really low and will need my complete concentration when in use.